Conformity to social roles (lesson 3) Flashcards
A01 A03
what was the aim of Zimbardo’s prison study
the aim of the study was to investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guards and prisoners in a simulated prison life. finding out whether brutality among the guards was due to sadistic personalities or the prison environment. if people didn’t act with aggression it was said to be the sadistic personalities, but if they did it was said to be because of the prison environment
what was the procedure of Zimbardo’s prison study
he created a fake prison in the basement of Stanford university. 21 male students rated as most physically and mentally stable were chosen from 75 volunteers who responded to a newspaper advert. there was a random selection of 10 guards and 11 prisoners. the prisoners were given a realistic arrest by local police, fingerprinted, stripped, deloused, and given a uniform and number in an attempt to dehumanize them. they followed strict rules during the day. guards had complete control and were given a uniform, club, handcuffs, and sunglasses to avoid eye contact.
what were the findings of the Zimbardo prison study
prisoners and guards conformed to their social roles quickly, in two days the prisoners revolted against the poor treatment by the guards and in six days the experiment was cancelled early due to fears for the prisoners’ mental health. there were lots of signs of violence and harassment. everyone conformed to their social roles.
what was the conclusion of the zimbardo prison study
people will conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if those roles are strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards ( the prison environment had an effect upon behaviour)
what happened to prisoner 8612
less than 36 hours into the experiment a prisoner suffered emotional disturbances, rage, and uncontrollable crying. prisoners told him he couldn’t quit and guards told him he was weak. he began to go crazy and he asked for his sentence to be truncated.
what is deindividualization
this is when an individual feels they are no longer responsible for their actions because they lose their own identification. the guards experienced this because of the sunglasses that were reflective allowing them to act without them feeling responsible.
what did Reicher and Haslam do in 2011
they attempted to recreate the experiment for the BBC. however, in this simulation, the prisoners became dominant over the guards and they became disobedient to the guards who were unable to control their behavior. so the volunteers did not conform to their roles therefore there may be some flexibility in what zimbardos study showed.
give a weakness of Zimbardo’s study
prisoners and guards in the study may have been acting due to stereotypes of prison life rather than conforming to social roles. imitating media they had seen online or on the news. showing that the results concluded may have not been valid for use.
what was the problem with the amount of guards that conformed to their social roles in the study
only 1 out of 3 guards actually acted out aggressively towards the prisoners showing that not all of them conformed to their social roles.
what was found by banuazizi and movahedi
they found that the majority of respondents,, when given the description of the study, were able to guess the hypothesis and predict how the participants were expected to behave. suggesting that demand characteristics were high and it could have just been an act
what were the many unethical concerns of the Zimbardo study
lacked informed consent
abuse of participants
and lack of appropriate debriefings for the amount of distress that was caused.
how did the Zimbardo study have a real-world application
for example, the findings from this study has helped us to explain the behaviour of the actions of Naxi soldiers in WW2. it has provided additional explanations to people’s behaviors.
